New Math Research Supports the Idea of Crop Circles as Examples of “Explosive Percolation”

Now this is really cool. Does network theory explain the weird effects of crop circles? A recent article from the March 13th, 2009 issue Science Magazine entitled “Explosive Percolation in Random Networks” (and the supporting report “Emergence of Connectivity in Networks” in the same issue) upholds the idea that the structure of crop circles could create the anomalous electro-magnetic effects sometimes seen in and around their vicinity.  The authors describe a type of phase transition in matter that arises when previous disconnected nodes randomly connect, suddenly and unexpectedly, as opposed to slower, linear changes that happen in “ordinary” systems. “Explosive percolation” is the term they use to explain how a network reorganizes itself as a result of “sudden linking,” to the extent that the entire system undergoes radical transformation. The is also known as a second-order transition, as in liquid water turning to ice, where as a first-order transition is more gradual, like the onset of magnetism. Second-order transitions, in contrast to the first-order type, are abrupt and discontinuous and describe networks that have undergone rapid restructuring.